Cost of freedom

Libya: Gaddafi regime’s last loyalists are negotiating their release from prison

By Jeune Afrique

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Posted on July 4, 2022 14:29

Senoussi Libya-jpg Abdallah Senoussi, Gaddafi’s former military intelligence chief, during his trial on 20 April 2015 in Tripoli © Hazem Turkia/Anadolu Agency via AFP
Abdallah Senoussi, Gaddafi’s former military intelligence chief, during his trial on 20 April 2015 in Tripoli © Hazem Turkia/Anadolu Agency via AFP

Armed and hooded men block the road leading to the largest prison in western Libya, next to Mitiga airport on the outskirts of Tripoli. Behind its high white walls, an entire block is reserved for its most famous prisoner, Abdallah Senoussi. “He is treated like a VIP and regularly examined by his private doctors,” a prison guard says.

Separated from the other – often mistreated – inmates, the 73-year-old ex-dignitary can move freely between several barracks, according to the young guard interviewed after his shift several dozen kilometres away. Senoussi even has the privilege of sharing the meals served to the head guards of the RADA Special Deterrence Forces, the powerful Salafist militia – headed by Abdel Raouf Kara – that controls the Mitiga area.

Senoussi, Muammar Gaddafi’s former head of military intelligence, has been negotiating his release for several months. He is one of the last of Gaddafi’s men still behind bars since the release of several former ministers and Gaddafi’s sons.

In 2019, RADA was entrusted with the custody of this leader that the Gaddafi regime chose to handle the dirty work, the organiser of the attack that killed 170 passengers on the UTA DC-10 flight in 1989, for which French justice

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